Creeping Feather-moss

Photo: Bob Osborn (via Flickr)

The problem with mosses is that it's very difficult to show them well in photographs. I was going to take a photo through the microscope but it didn't come out well and wouldn't be that instructive. This is a moss collected growing on the site of a WWI sea-plane hangar at Newhaven. (Well it's not the actual moss but the same species.) This time keying it out was a bit simpler - Creeping Feather-moss, Amblystegium serpens. It's very common and usually found on living or dead wood, but also on soil and stones, the bases of walls and tarmac.

Black-Headed Gull

"Black-headed Gull from the Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland" by Richard Crossley - The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

There were plenty of these around today down at Newhaven and roosting on the Lewes Brooks RSPB reserve earlier in the week. The 'black' heads of the Black-Headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, is in fact chocolate brown and only seen in the breeding season. They have black wing tips which distinguishes them from the similar Mediterranean Gull. The latter also has a heavier bill without the black tip and a truly black hood which extends further down the nape.

Purple Sandpiper

"Calidris maritima" by Andreas Trepte - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons

Saw about eight of these little chaps milling about on the lowest parts of the east arm of Newhaven harbour. They are funny to look at with their short legs and dumpy bodies. The slightly down turned beak and beady eye gives them a somewhat shifty appearance. There's something incongruous about their habit of pootling about where the mighty ocean crashes into the land right next to them. The Purple Sandpiper, Calidris maritima, isn't particularly purple even in its breeding plumage. It breeds on Arctic islands and most don't come as far south as Sussex. Their loss from this county is possible with continued global warming, although some regularly overwinter in Portugal.

Sea Club-Rush

This is Sea Club-Rush growing at Blackpill on Swansea Bay. It's binomial is Bolboschoenus maritimus. It likes brackish environments and has two distinctive leaf-like bracts, one considerably longer than the other. The corners of the triangular stems (sedge family) are scabrid (great word).
Meant to post yesterday but traveled to Budapest and got distracted.

posted from Bloggeroid

Sea Sandwort

Quick one tonight as in a bit of a rush. This is one from the coast at Burry Port on the north shore of the Loughor Estuary. Sea Sandwort or Honckenya peploides. I think the binomial is better than the common name for this one. It is actually a member of the Campion family, although it would be hard to place when you come across it no in flower.

Sea Spurge

This is another plant from the Welsh littoral: Sea Spurge, Euphorbia paralias. As you can no doubt tell, these are two different plants. It is found above the high tide mark but below the dunes in these cases. Euphorbias have weird flowers with round or crescent-shaped 'glands'. (Unfortunately these aren't clear in the photo.) The inflorescence is an umbel although this isn't as obvious as in the carrot family. They also have acrid latex which is obvious when the stems are cut.

Common Cord-grass

 

 

This is a genuinely interesting grass. No really. It is the primogenitor of saltmarsh succession, invariably the only plant to grow until it has trapped sufficient sediment to raise the land out of the tidal range inhospitable to the rest. Here it has formed a small patch of saltmarsh in Swansea Bay and was the only thing growing apart from seaweed. 
It is also the best understood example of allopolyploidy: the creation of a new, fertile species from the hybridization of two species followed by chromosome doubling. Common cord-grass, Spartina anglica, has evolved from the sterile hybrid Townsend's cord-grass, S. xtownsendii. This is a hybrid of Small cord-grass, S. maritima, and Smooth cord-grass, S. alterniflora. So you get a lot of cord-grass for your buck with this tough little critter.
Smooth cord-grass was introduced from North America and the hybrid arose around Southampton in the mid nineteenth century. S. anglica was first noticed in 1892 and its vigour and sediment-trapping ability was soon recognised. Consequently it was widely planted around the coast as part of sea-defences and land-reclamation. It can grow seaward of every other perennial plant! 

Fox Moth

This little fella was crossing the road, one can only assume to get to the other side. It took a bit of sleuthing to identify, but it is an early instar of the Fox Moth, Macrothylacia rubi. It lives with remarkable views and plenty of food. After overwintering as a final instar it pupates around the end of March/April to emerge as the moth which flies until June.

Wild Parsnip

I feel a bit stupid for not taking a picture of the whole plant as it is a massive thing towering to around two metres. There were several of them spaced out in a glade amongst pines behind the beach at Burry Port on the north side of the Loughor estuary. They looked like a weird installation.
The book says they are strong smelling, so I crushed a bit to check. Later it warns you that the sap is highly irritant, causing a nasty rash on exposure to sunlight. I can't help thinking the warning should have come first.
It is Wild Parsnip, Pastinaca sativa. It is generally classified as the same species as the vegetable but a number of different subspecies are recognised.
The plant contains useful chemicals, including coumarins and psoralens. The latter absorb UV light and are used in suncreams.

Marram Grass

This is perhaps the most familiar plant of British dunes: Marram grass, Ammophila arenaria. It's extensive rhizomes stabilise the sand preventing drifting of the dunes. The plant was harvested in the past for various uses, including thatching and basket-making, but this led to dune movement and loss of arable land and villages, especially in Denmark. Laws were introduced in Scotland in the seventeenth century and Denmark in the eighteenth century to prevent its removal.
The genus name derives from the Greek ammos: sand, and philia: lover. It is an example of a xerophyte, able to tolerate drought through various adaptations that help reduce water loss: waxy covering; inrolled leaves with stomata on the internal surface only; stomata situated in small pits; hairs to slow air movement across the leaf surface.

Sea Holly

Sea Holly must be the most striking plant of the dunes? This magnificent specimen of Eryngium maritimum was growing at the back of the beach at the Llangenith end of Rhossili beach. It caught my eye when the sun came out, silvery blue ruffs around the spiky inflorescence.

Wood Sage

This is another plant from the Pembrokeshire coast which I was a little suprised to find growing amidst the gorse and heather: Wood Sage, Teucrium scorodonia. It has a great Latin binomial.

Chough

"Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax -Penwith -Cornwall -flying-8b" by Andrew - originally posted to Flickr as chough. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyrrhocorax_pyrrhocorax_-Penwith_-Cornwall_-flying-8b.jpg#/media/File:Pyrrhocorax_pyrrhocorax_-Penwith_-Cornwall_-flying-8b.jpg

My final catch-up post is of one of my favourite birds: the Chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, the red-legged red-billed member of the crow family and one of our rarest. It is confined to coasts in Wales and Cornwall. It is the county bird of Cornwall but absent for around fifty years until it re-colonised in 2001. The Latin name refers to the ancient belief that it was drawn to and caused fires, although the means by which it initiated conflagrations was never clearly elucidated. It has broader more rectangular wings in proportion to its body when compared with the other crows, with long separate primary 'fingers' which are seen clearly in the photo. It's call is described by the inestimably Geoff Sample as "whizzing zings" which is a perfectly succinct summary.
 

Betony

Catching up on missed posts: this is Betony, Stachys officinalis, growing amidst the bell heather and western gorse beside the coastal path. 
The specific name indicates longstanding usage by the herbalists. The Romans thought it protected against sorcery and later it was used to thwart witchcraft.

Rock Sea-spurrey

This was a new one for me and it's taken a little while to find it in the books. Close up it has exquisite little flowers and is densely covered in glandular hairs. It was growing right on the coastal path at the base of one of the stone 'steps' put in by the National Trust team. 
It is Rock Sea-spurrey, Spergularia rupicola, a member of the Caryophyllaceae family (Chickweeds, Pinks and Campions).

Babington's Orache

This is, I'm pretty sure, Babington's orache, Atriplex glabriuscula, sprawling over the shingle at the back of a beautiful little cove between Newgale and Solva on the Pembrokeshire coast. To be certain one would need to check the bracteoles, but as you can see from the photos the flowers are only just appearing. It can be difficult to distinguish from Spear-leaved orache, Atriplex prostrata.

Rock Samphire

Another coastal plant growing on a headland near Caerfai Farm. This was taken late on our last day. That night a cold front blew in and changed things utterly: high winds and torrential rain.
This is Rock Samphire, Crithmum maritimum, which is an unusual member of the Umbellifer family in that it has fleshy stems and leaves, like cacti. It is confined, as the binomial suggests, to coastal locations. Oddly it isn't found between the very north of Scotland and Suffolk. 

Buck's-horn Plantain

Another quick post this evening as it's later than intended (the days are supposed to be longer but I seem to run out of time more often in the summer) and I'm up early tomorrow to drive to Reading University to attend a grasses identification workshop courtesy of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (blog passim). 
This caught my eye on the littoral not far from yesterday's plant. It's buck's-horn plantain or Plantago coronopus. 
The coast is where one would expect to find it, but it is also found elsewhere. Roadside verges, for instance, where salt and sand also co-mingle. In fact the first time I saw this plant it was growing between kerbstones at our local bus stop.

Sea Kale

Nearly went to bed without posting so this is just a quickie: sea kale, Crambe maritima. There is an impressive display on the shingle beach between Newhaven and Seaford with more prolific flowering than I can remember. It used to be a delicacy, the young leaves blanched and eaten like modern cabbage and kale. Although often plentiful in the places where it is still found, overall it has declined enormously.

Thrift

It is one of my favourite plants. I think this is in part because it grows by the sea where I enjoy being. It often grows in profusion, colouring swathes of coast in pink.
This Ameria maritima is growing on the soft chalk cliffs at Hope Gap between Seaford and Cuckmere Haven. We went yesterday to see if we could find some fossils. We found one which we decided was probably a sea urchin or closely related creature.